The London Underground (Underground in general)

Member Name: ajbluestar

Product:	Underground in general
Date:	29/03/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lots of stations, easy to navigate around, well designed system

Disadvantages: delays,engineering work etc

The London Underground is a tube network which serves the area of London and also regions on the outskirts of the city. With 270 stations currently and around 250 miles of track it is the longest metro system in the world in terms of its length. It is also the World's oldest underground railway system.

The Underground system currently has 11 lines :the Bakerloo line, Central line, Circle line, District line, Hammersmith & City line, Jubilee line, Metropolitan line, Northern line, Piccadilly line, Victoria line, and Waterloo & City line.Each of these lines have a distinct colour to identify them and they are all presented together on a tube map in order to allow travellers to plan their journeys and route. This tube map has become almost symbolic of London and similar maps are used for metro systems worldwide.

In order to calculate fares , there are 6 travel zones : 1-6. Zone 1 is the most central and covers central London whereas Zone 6 is on the outskirts including stations such as Heathrow Airport.

You can buy a ticket normally from a ticket machine which is a paper ticket in order to cover your journey. You can also buy daily,weekly,monthly and yearly travel cards. These can be bought with the new oyster card system which is a smartcard which can be charged with credit in orer to travel. It can be used as a pay as you go type card or you can make it a travel card within specified zones.

For people visiting London e.g tourists who do not need to travel in the morning a one day travel card or multiple day travel card is probably the best option and offers the best value for money.

Having lived in London for quite a while and having experienced the tube system alot, I can say it is definately a good transport system but not without its flaws. There are often delays , engineering works, cancellations etc but the system in itself is pretty good. If a station is not available you will usually have replacement buses. Also with so many stations and not much distance between some of them you can always try and find an alternative route to your destination. With the buses as well as the underground and trains getting around London is not the hardest but may not always be quick. Thats what you get for such a busy city!

Summary: overall a good system but can have problems sometimes